Thursday, September 8, 2011

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I think winter is finally over and spring is upon us! It's been a lot warmer around here! Warm enough to wear sandals and shorts and to start playing outdoors! ;) We've been looking very forward to this!

St. Patrick's Day.It was the first day we were able to wear shorts.We celebrated by walking to Dairy Queen.

Conference Weekend Cupcakes.Made these fun spring cupcakes for Conference.Strawberry cake with pink or purple frosting, yellowfrosting designs and sprinkles on top! Yum!It was even nice enough that weekend that we watchedSunday afternoon conference with some goodfriends. Court made kebabs and after the sessionwas over we sat out on their porch and enjoyedthe warmth. Good times. Just wish I had thoughtto bring my camera!

Eating Conference Cupcakes! ;) Yum-O!!

Rapunzel Hair.Meredith is obsessed with the movie "Tangled"and with being Rapunzel. Silly kid even likesto clip an ace bandage in her hair and pretendit is her "Rapunzel hair". Here she is modelingher magical ace bandage hair.

New Spring Dress.Got a new spring dress. She looked so darncute in it, I had to get a picture! Look howgrown up my baby is! :/

And look how long her hair is! :)

This past Saturday was such a beautiful day!Meredith has been wanting to play baseball, sowe got her a plastic ball and bat and took her tothe park so Court could teach her how to hit a ball.We ended up playing on the tennis courts becausethe grass and baseball fields were really muddy.We had so much fun! And I think Court reallyenjoyed getting to share his love for baseballwith his daughter! ;) Here is Meredith pitching:

Thursday, April 7, 2011

I finally figured out how to get my photos off my iphone! Although, my iphone doesn't take nearly as good pictures as my camera. Sad. I guess I'll just have to always keep my camera with me.

Anyway. Here's a few fun pictures...

Sleepy Bug.On our way home from a birthday party.They made these cute bug hats and went ona bug hunt. Meredith had a blast, and then crashedabout 1 minute after we left! :)

More In-door Camping.She didn't end up sleeping the wholenight here. After about 15 minutes of tryingshe decided she'd rather sleep in her bed.Can't really blame her, I prefer my bed too.

Sorry this picture is blurry. But, really, isn'tcamping so much more fun with dad??

Meredith wearing the headlampthat came with the camping set.She loves that thing!

Future Construction Worker of America.This is Meredith at Kid Town. I blogged aboutit in a previous blog. Literally a town wherekids can dress up as all different people...doctor,police officer, fire fighter, princess, etc. Meredith lovesto go to kid town.

Meredith and Mommy at Portillos with Flat Stanleyand a Chicago Dog! My niece, Kathryn, lives inUtah and is learning about letter writing andalso about different U.S. states. To help her learn,her teacher had her write us a letterand send her friend "Flat Stanley" to visit us. We had to take a picture of us with him at apopular place in our city. Then we sent him backwith some post cards and other fun stuff to sharewith her class. We had a lot of fun with it. Courtate the Chicago dog, and I got to eat that delicioussalad. MMmmmm....Portillos! I think we may needto go there for lunch again soon! ;)

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

It's cold here in the winter time. REALLY cold. Which means finding things to do indoors to keep an active 3 year old happy. We frequented the McDonald's playplaces and the play areas at the local malls. They also have lots of in-door play places like Kids Town, which is literally an indoor play town where kids can dress up as a doctor or a construction worker or a mail carrier or even a princess. Meredith loves that place. But it's not free, so it can get expensive. So here's some things we came up with at home to keep Miss Meredith entertained:

In-door Camping.I found this little tent on sale at Target.It actually came with a sleeping bag, backpack and apink head lamp all for $7. I couldn't pass up that deal!Meredith loves to play and take naps in it. You cansee the backpack that it came with sitting on her kitchencounter.

The one and only time Meredith has actuallyspent the night in her tent. She likes to nap in it,but at night she just wants to be in her bed. It wasactually pitch dark in her room when I took this.But my camera's flash makes it look like it's themiddle of the day.Bubble Baths. With Balloons.Court brought a bunch of balloons home one nightafter home teaching. One of his families had themleftover from a party. So, the next morning, whenMeredith wanted to take a bath, I went ahead andthrew all the balloons in with her.She loved it! I was worried that she wouldn't evertake another bath with out balloons, but she does. Althoughshe sometimes still asks for the balloons when I'm fillingthe tub.Play-doh Cookie Shop.Yes, I helped her make these cookies, but theidea to make a cookie shop was all hers. She had tohave them set out just right and then I got to bethe customer and buy the cookies from her.

Stuffed Animal Hospital.Meredith is fascinated by the bones in ourbodies. She will often have me feel her bones...usuallyby touching her elbows. She also sings a little song about"a bunch of bones that everyone owns,Underneath the skin we're in!"She heard it on an episode of Bubble Guppies - oneof her favorite Nick Jr. shows. So, one day she laid out allher little stuffed friends and started taking care of them.She even made pretend meals for them! That pink blanket onthe floor was her "x-ray table" and all of her animals wouldtake a turn getting their bones x-rayed. I told Court she'sgoing to have to get a doctor kit for her next birthday!

When we moved to Texas, Court assured me that Hurricanes were rare. In his 26 years, he'd only been through one, and his family didn't even evacuate. Hurricane Rita was an anomaly. Of course, in the 3 years we lived there, we had 2 hurricanes! Gustav and Ike. So, I guess it should have been no surprise that our first winter in Chicago we'd experience one of the top 5 worst Blizzards in Chicago history. Interestingly, I was about Meredith's age, living not too far from here when another of the top 5 Blizzards in Chicago history hit. So, I get to claim surviving 2 blizzards in my lifetime! Let's just hope there aren't any more! But I won't hold my breath. I've also been told that tornadoes here are possible, but fairly rare...I REALLY hope I don't have to experience one of those! Knock on wood! But, anyway...

To be honest, the Blizzard of 2011 really wasn't THAT bad. It started snowing about 3:00 in the afternoon. The wind really started to pick up about 9:00 in the evening and it pretty much blew all night long. And the snow never stopped...from 3pm to 9am it dumped on us. I was worried about losing power, but Court reassured me that since most of the power lines around here are buried in the ground, we'd probably be okay. And he was right. The nice thing about the Blizzard was that Court got to stay home from work for the day and we played in the snow, drank hot chocolate and just hung out together as a family. It was kind of nice. Of course, we live in an apartment complex, so we didn't really have to scoop any snow...just enough to get the building door open and to get our cars out. I think it would have been worse if we'd had to dig out a driveway. And, I give kudos to the state of Illinois for their ability to clear roads so quickly. By the afternoon, we were able to get around town without too much difficulty. But there was a TON of snow piled up along the sides of the roads and in every parking lot for quite a while. I got tired of looking at it! Thankfully, all that snow is gone now.

Meredith trying to get through the huge snow bankright out side our apartment building entrance.

This little natural snow sculpture was rightnext to Court's car. If you look closely, you cansort of see a bald eagle in it. I thought it was coollooking. Amazing what the wind can create.

Our cars were buried. The snow fell in such away that the snow was really high on one side ofthe cars, and not so much on the other.

Court and Meredith exploring post-Blizzard. Theyplowed the parking lot several times throughoutthe night, so that helped to keep the parking lotseasy to walk around in.

Meredith didn't really love getting snow on her face.Little girl in a sea of white.

Later in the afternoon after they got the sidewalkssomewhat cleared. I like this photo because you cansee how high the snow was in comparison to Meredith.And you can see Court in the background working ongetting our cars dug out.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Greetings all! It's been a VERY long time since I posted to the blog...just lazy, I guess. but I'm going to try to do better, especially with the new baby coming. But, anyway...here's a whole bunch of random pictures from the last few months...

This first group was taken at the Field Museum in downtown Chicago. Most of the big museums downtown have days where admission is free. Usually mid-week in the mornings. Perfect for moms and kids. I have a good friend with a little girl Meredith's age, so we often get together and take the girls downtown. It's a lot of fun. The Field Museum has all the dinosaurs and natural history exhibits. They also have a children's area where kids can dress up as different animals, dig for dinosaur bones, do dinosaur related crafts and science projects, and a room with some interesting musical instruments the kids can play. Meredith loves to go there and run around.

This is Meredith pretending to be a turtle.

This is Meredith and her friend Andee. Meredith isa turtle, Andee is dressed in the beaver costume.

Here are the girls dressing up as Cardinals.

Meredith flapping her Cardinal wings.

This is one of Meredith's favorite things.The dinosaur puppets. She's sitting in a dinosaur nest.

They also have an area that teaches the kids about how earlyman grew corn, harvested it, stored it and cooked with it.Here is Meredith picking ears of corn (plastic ones).

And this is Meredith and Andee stackingthem in the storage building.

We're learning to love snowy, cold winters...okay, I don't think I'll EVER love snowy, cold winters! But Meredith seems to like them. As soon as she sees snow she wants to get out and play in it. I wish I could have her enthusiasm for it.

Here she is all bundled up to go to the library.She's holding a couple of videos we were on our wayto return. The library here is amazing and has all kinds ofmovies and things that you can check out. We love goingto the library. But, anyway, I think she looks sodarn cute in her little hat, gloves and coat! ;)

Meredith and Court making snow angels. This wasafter our first big snowstorm of the season. About a monthbefore the Blizzard of 2011. Fortunately, Court seems to likeplaying in the snow as much as Meredith does.

Wearing her Christmas jammies. We got her thatChristmas Minnie Mouse from Walgreens and shewas instantly attached to it. In fact, we accidentally left thefirst one we bought at a friend's house after ChristmasEve dinnerand she was so beside herself about it, we endedup stopping at another Walgreens on the way homeand buying her another one.

Christmas morning. Feeding baby Ariel whilewearing her new Cinderella dress. We found the dress atKohl's a few days after Halloween marked way down. What asteal of a deal! Meredith wears it all the time!We took Meredith to see Rapunzel a day or two beforeChristmas and she loved the movie so much, Court braved thecrowds and ran to Toys 'R' Us to get her this Rapunzel doll.We were surprised that she didn't play with it as much aswe thought she would.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Yesterday, Meredith came running to me and said, "Mom I made Thanksgiving dinner!" She led me to her table and said, "See my lovely table? Sit down." So, I did. And we ate the best Thanksgiving dinner ever! I love her! Happy Thanksgiving!